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Is My Love Accompanied with Knowledge?

and it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment.
Philippians 1:9

Last year our state Kerala witnessed the biggest floods ever. Water is life and water is a blessing. Rivers are one of the main source for getting water. But this same river when it just flows wherever it wants to, can destroy people's lives.

We have seen that the main idea in the prayer that Paul prays here is love. Yesterday we saw that Paul prayed that this love should be overflowing and abundant. Now along with overflowing love, Paul wants this love to have knowledge and discernment. In other words Paul wants this love to have the right perspective. Just like overflowing river can cause damage, in the same manner overflowing love without the right perspective can be harmful than helping the others to grow. If our love is just pure emotion without discretion or direction it can bring devastation.

Paul wants this overflowing love to be accompanied with two things - knowledge and discernment. We will look at the first word today - knowledge.

The epignosis, the Greek word for knowledge here, means an expert knowledge, a mature knowledge, brought on by experience. Analyzing Paul's writings on the whole we see that Paul often takes love and knowledge and combines them. Sometimes he'll oppose them. He'll show the difference between them.  For example, in 1 Corinthians 8 Paul says, "knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." He's contrasting love and knowledge. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul adds, "though I speak with a tongue of men or of angels, but I have not love, I've become like a clanging cymbal sounding brass. And though I can understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, but I have not love, I have become nothing."

Paul says that knowledge needs love. And in the verse we have taken for meditation Paul says that love needs knowledge for that love to be responsible love. Paul mentions this when he speaks about a zealous group of religious people of his. He said they have a zeal for God but it's not according to knowledge. And he faulted them for that. It's pure emotion but no knowledge.

If we diminish our need for knowledge and place feeling above knowledge and do whatever is in our heart, that is the most dangerous thing we can do. It is dangerous to live that way. A parent can feel they had to give something, whatever the child wants because that is the loving thing; there could not be anything worse than that. No parent gives a child whatever they want.

How has our love been? Is it simply based on sentimentality and emotion? Or is it grounded with knowledge.May our love always grow abundantly but firmly built on the pillar of knowledge.

God Bless You

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Location: Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India

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